I wanted this more than a Lakers trade. That would have automatically opened the golden door for us to walk right through to the playoffs.

Bucks and Houston just won this trade deadline and Houston have won everything but an NBA title since last summer. Bill Simmons sums up:

Dork Elvis went into the summer with a slew of "if"s and came out of it with a franchise guy (Harden), two starters on fair contracts (Lin and Asik), the fifth overall pick AND cap space for 2013. That's spectacular. I'm so happy that he's not getting fired, and that he won't be moving into my guest room. What do you think of Houston's playoff chances?

Standing pat right now does nothing but re-enforce my belief that the Lakers only focus on the big splashy moves. For years we have allowed unused/unwanted players to just draw a paycheck while never affording them an opportunity to grow. Again, the Lakers have not proven to be a nurturing or patient environment for young , unproven players. That's why they don't bother to acquire low risk/reward players (a'la Ronnie Brewer, Sam Young, Terence Williams or Delonte West) who could be better fits for the roster. When was the last time they brought in a ten day contract player?

I wanted this more than a Lakers trade. That would have automatically opened the golden door for us to walk right through to the playoffs.

Bucks and Houston just won this trade deadline and Houston have won everything but an NBA title since last summer. Bill Simmons sums up:

Dork Elvis went into the summer with a slew of "if"s and came out of it with a franchise guy (Harden), two starters on fair contracts (Lin and Asik), the fifth overall pick AND cap space for 2013. That's spectacular. I'm so happy that he's not getting fired, and that he won't be moving into my guest room. What do you think of Houston's playoff chances?

But Houston is worse short term. They lost their two rotational PF. Patterson is more important to the success of the Rockets than people think.

When was the last time a 10-day player not named Jeremy Lin amounted for anything? We have done far too well to get some quality role players like Ariza, Shannon Brown, Clark recently and even before that the acquisitions of Mo Evans etc was a bit underrated.

Came home from work and looked up the lakers to see if they did anything. Not even one minor trade to help the bench. The Celtics got the player I wanted the lakers to get. And they gave up a player who is out with a torn ACL. Lakers could not do better than that. That sucks.